Friday, 9 September 2016

My eyes wondered on a beggar who was asking for money as he was presenting himself to be disabled. This got me thinking. Who was the richest person on that busy street?

As an accountant, It may seem easier to measure our worth by what we have instead of who we are. There is a hard and fast equation for our net worth, but that is not what makes us worthy.

We are a society of objective numbers. A lot of people look at their income as a measure of their success; the car that you drive, the brands that you wear and the kind of houses that you live in. All these material assets are proves of your earning capabilities. The more expensive these assets are, the better one feels about themselves.

The amount of money you make doesn’t necessarily translate into your self-worth. There’s no denying that money makes things happen. But don’t let your income be the measure of your self-worth.

You are not your job title, your job does not define you. If If someone is earning more money than you, or they’ve made their passion their career, or they’re job title has more responsibility — none of that means they are “better” than you. Because the amount of money we make, or the number of followers we have, does not define us. In other words, your career status does not define your self-worth.

You’re a good person because of your character and work ethic, because you treat others with respect, and because you are kind and generous. We’d all like to have that salary we think we should be making, but don’t let it change who you are if you don’t make the big bucks

You can’t buy self-worth and you can’t measure it by what is in your bank account. The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money.

Thursday, 18 August 2016

Jim Collins coined this the “Stockdale Paradox”, named after Admiral James Stockdale who was a United States Military Officer who was held captive for eight years during the Vietnam War; Stockdale was also tortured more than twenty times by his captors, had no prisoner’s rights, no release date, and no idea of whether he would survive to see his family again.

During his time in captivity, Stockdale was fully aware of his dire circumstances and did everything he could to improve his chances of survival. The most impressive factor in this situation is Stockdale’s mind-set, he never loses faith about survival, yet the one key and vital aspect he keeps is his reality.

He is truthful with himself, he does not set dates on rescue or anything like that, but instead he realized the situation he was in, while being honest with the fact that his current situation was horrible and uncertain.

For me, the Stockdale Paradox carries an important lesson in personal development, a lesson in faith and honesty: Never doubt that you can achieve your goals. But at the same time, always take honest stock of your current situation.

In the end you can’t control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond, and if you carefully think through the problem, are optimistic that you will make it through, and then that’s the best possible way to deal with obstacles, big or small.

Confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be and at the same time retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties. That is Redha and Tawakal concept in Islam.

This concept was clear in the Quran and stories of history. When a person is afflicted with trials and tragedy, not only the person effort and patience but he/she also prayers towards God that will be the faith for survival.